My Home Ideas

Special Offers

Be the first to know about This Old House contests, sweepstakes, and events and receive special offers and promotions from your favorite home improvement brands. We'll even send you regular reminders to enter our sweepstakes.

Old House My House

Life in front of the camera and behind the scenes at a This Old House renovation.

Category: Arlington Italianate 2013-2014

We had long felt that our house was missing something in the front. It had many lovely details, but the front porch was a bit bare. So we asked our architect, David Whitney, to work up some options for a railing (or balustrade). Here are the four options he came back with.

Personally I liked the way the Geometric scheme picked up the angles of the house, but I was overruled. We went with the flat stock profiles, and handed the design over to Tom and Norm to take a crack at making them on site.

One of the goals of the renovation was to create a more open feel to the home while preserving the character and charm of the period. A large part of this vision included removing the drop ceilings that were added to the first floor many years ago. We were really excited (and slightly worried) about what we would find. Tom Silva cut away a piece of the dining room ceiling so that we could get a sneak preview of our 141 year old ceiling. This beautiful discovery exceeded our expectations.

In most ways we were a pretty typical family. We had our routine: got up in the morning, got the kids to school, went to work, ate dinner, repeat. Normal stuff.

Then our home was selected as a project for This Old House. And just like that - poof - the routine was gone.

As a service for you, reader, I've put together this list. If you notice the following things happening to you, you too may be on a home improvement show.

#1: There are cameras everywhere

One day I came home from work and found this in my living room:

I knew going into this there were going to be webcams, but I had no idea each one was going to be 6 feet tall, make noise and scare the heck out of me every time I walked into the room. Not shown are the ones in the front and back yards, or the one parked outside our bathroom.

#2: Very intense people are telling you what to do. And you do it.

The first filming day was an eye opener. I'll start by saying the crew is incredibly nice and professional. The folks behind the camera have the same level of expertise in their fields as Tom, Roger, Kevin and Norm.

But once it comes time to shoot an episode, they are all business. Here's what it looks like when Tom Draught, the director, tells you what to do during a shot.

See the intensity in his eyes? Clearly this is not a man to ignore.

#3: Funny things are happening all around you.

Here's a picure of TOH series producer Deb Hood showing Tom Silva how to use Twitter. Yes, pigs are now flying. You can follow him here.

#4: You see this thing parked in front of your house

I'm sure we'll get back to our routine once the project is over. But for now we're enjoying the ride!

When we first thought about adding a second floor above our office, we figured we'd be in store for some conversations about the foundation. The office was housed in a small addition at the back of the house that - we think - started off as a screened-in porch.

Our hunch prooved right. When Tom and the crew started poking around under the office it didn't take long for them to conclude that it was merely a pile of rubble under our house. It wasn't really doing much to hold the structure up. Here's a picture of Tommy drawing a picture of how slanted the back part of our house had become over the years.

The photo also shows the LVL they bolted to the structure to make it level.

So they quickly decided we needed to add a proper foundation if we wanted to add on a second level. That meant digging down four feet to get below the frost line. Because of the number of boulders on our site and the location where they needed to dig, excavation needed to be done by hand. That's a a lot of work. Two days later this is what it looked like:

They poured a new concrete footing, then built the walls out of block. Amazingly, most of this happened during one of the rainiest weeks of the year. Our son came by to inspect their work.

Inside they put a rat slab.

The finished foundation looks good. The back room, which will now be part of the kitchen, is level and solid. And best if all, it's ready for the second story soon to be built above it.

In an earlier post we showed some pictures of the surprise staircase we found behind a wall. Sadly, there wasn't a spot for it in our new plans, so it had to go. Here's a quick video of Tom and Kevin taking it down.

When we bought our home we loved a lot of things about it. But the kitchen wasn't one of them. While it looked nice enough and had some interesting cabinets, it was worn out and too small for our family. So we were excited to see the crew start the demo process.

Here's Kevin laying into the counter and cabinets.

Here he is after everything has been removed.

And here's a more recent picture with Tom. You'll note he's taken things to a whole new level. Not only have all the walls been gutted, but he's also removed the floor and ceiling.

In this picture you can see into the back office, which will soon be part of the expanded kitchen. You'll also note he took the opportunity to fix some of our joists. I think the chimney will be coming down soon, so stay tuned!

The project is now in full swing. Demo started last week, and the crew is making real progress. Here's a view from the back of the house (what used to be an office) toward the kitchen.

Once the plaster came down, we were able to take a closer look at the original beams used to construct the house, and got a sense of some of the alterations made to the structure over the past 141 years.